Kaw Valley Almanac
Note from the Times: The Kaw Valley Almanac is a contributed piece that runs each week. Find more information and older editions at kawvalleyalmanac.com, and follow @KVAlmanac on Twitter.
this week’s Almanac
Kaw Valley Almanac for July 1-7, 2024
Pollinators continue to carry pollen from flower to flower while being nourished by the nectar produced by the light eating plants in the win-win interdependence between, in this case, a bee and a butterfly milkweed.
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Kaw Valley Almanac for March 11-17, 2024
Look to the south after dark to see some of the best constellations of the year, with Orion sliding west from the south, Taurus and the Pleiades leading the way and bright Jupiter in the west.
Kaw Valley Almanac for March 4-10, 2024
This is a good time of year to look for heron nests, which are located in giant, white-barked sycamores along creekbeds in valleys across much of the eastern half of the state.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Feb. 26 – March 3, 2024
Kansas is blessed with some of the best sunsets and sunrises, so hang out and enjoy the minute-by-minute changes that take place in our not-cloudy-all-day skies this week — you won’t regret it!
Kaw Valley Almanac for Feb. 19-25, 2024
Slender mountain mint seedheads, like beebalm seedheads, keep their aroma long after they have dried up. Smash them between your fingers and thumb and you’ll get a burst of minty essence that is surprisingly strong.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Feb. 12-18, 2024
Crocuses are blooming, as are the other early spring ornamental snowdrops.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Feb. 5-11, 2024
The Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge folks estimate that with the melting ice and recent rains, there are nearly 400,000 snow geese there right now.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, 2024
This is a wonderful time of year to take walks in area prairies and take photos of abstract patterns of tousled grasses and dried flowers.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Jan. 22-28, 2024
This turkey will get warmer if cloudier weather this week, and perchance the opportunity to find more bugs and scraps to eat as the crusty snow softens and melts away in the predicted rain.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Jan. 15-21, 2024
This downy woodpecker has been doing double duty: pecking on the rail to inform other woodpeckers that he has intentions to make this area his territory, in addition to snatching a sunflower seed now and then.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Jan. 8-14, 2024
If you look carefully, there are rabbit tracks to the right of the coyote tracks. It’s likely the coyote was “reading the tracks” left by the rabbit, following in hopes of a meal.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Jan. 1-7, 2024
Around dusk, many flocks of blackbirds find a safe place to alight in the upper reaches of cottonwoods, oaks, elms and other tall trees. You can see this dynamic play itself out across the state every year just past the winter solstice.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Dec. 25-31, 2023
This immature hawk perched on a cedar limb is looking for an
rodent or stray bird for a quick meal. Judging from the number
of hawks on power line poles, fences and trees this time of
year, there is enough to live on.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Dec. 18-24, 2023
”When I was a kid in the 1960s, most years, we’d be ice skating by now,” Ken Lassman writes in the latest Kaw Valley Almanac.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Dec. 11-17, 2023
Cedar (actually juniper) boughs are easily harvested as a fragrant and popular indoor decoration to festoon a mantle, window sill, or even as an alternative Christmas tree. The blue berries are a favored food of many an overwintering bird, too.
Kaw Valley Almanac for Dec. 4-10, 2023
Even though the least total daylight of the year occurs on the winter solstice, the earliest sunsets of the year occur this week, and they can be spectacular.